Tuesday, May 10

Touring the East Village’s Incubator of Experimentation

"Seen head-on, behind the scaffolding, Performance Space 122 looks about the same as it has for years: that red-brick facade overlooking First Avenue, those hulking metal gates guarding the door. But stroll a few yards up the sidewalk, peek around the edge of the building, and the scruffiness gives way to a gleaming new exterior. Its sleekness betrays no hint of the gentrifying neighborhood’s tatty, crime-ridden past or the creative experiments that have gone on there since 1980, when PS122 opened at the corner of East Ninth Street. What began as a squat in an old public school building would become a stage for people like Spalding Gray and Meredith Monk, for Eric Bogosian and the preglobal Blue Man Group. ..."NY TimesPS122PS122 Mobile Walking Tour (Video)Lower East Side History MonthUnder the Radar (Video)